Air India's Flight Safety Chief suspended for a month

Aviation watchdog, Directorate General of Civil Aviation, on Thursday said it has suspended Tata Group-owned Air India's flight safety chief Rajeev Gupta for one month for certain lapses.

Besides, the regulator has directed the airline not to assign any audits, surveillance and spot checks to an auditor due to lack of diligence in work.

On July 25 and 26, the regulator's team carried out the surveillance of Air India in the areas of internal audit, accident prevention work and availability of required technical manpower.

The surveillance found deficiencies in the accident prevention work carried out by the organisation and the availability of the requisite technical manpower as required in the approved Flight Safety Manual and the relevant Civil Aviation Requirements, DGCA said in a release.

"The approval of chief of flight safety of Air India has been suspended for a period of one month for the lapses established," it said.

Rajeev Gupta is the chief of Flight Safety Air India Ltd.

"We acknowledge and accept the DGCA's finding, and regret the failure of one of our audit staff to fully comply with the process and documentation requirements," an Air India spokesperson said in a statement.

The spokesperson also said the airline is not sparing any effort to uplift the culture of safety and diligence to contemporary standards, through clarifying requirements, training and stricter consequence management. "We will continue these efforts for as long as is needed to effect the necessary changes".

The person against whom the regulator has taken action is an internal auditor and had also served as the head of flight safety when Air India was under government control, a source in the know said.

In the past also, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation had cracked the whip against the full service carrier for various alleged violations and lapses.

In the release on Thursday, DGCA said it was observed that some of the internal audit/spot checks claimed to be carried out by the airline were done in a perfunctory manner and not as per the regulatory requirements.

After reviewing the action taken report submitted by the airline, DGCA issued show cause notices to the concerned post holders.

"Based on the review of the replies received, the airline has been directed not to assign any audits/surveillance/spot checks pertaining to compliance of DGCA requirements to the particular auditor involved in the perfunctory inspections which indicate lack of diligence," the release said.

Last month, the regulator suspended for 10 days the ATO approval to Air India's training facilities in Mumbai and Hyderabad for certain lapses in simulator training.

In February this year, the regulator ordered the removal of the head of training of Air India's subsidiary AIX Connect (earlier AirAsia India) from his position for a period of three months for violating certain norms relating to the training of pilots.

Besides, it had imposed a penalty of Rs 20 lakh on the airline as well as a fine of Rs 3 lakh each on eight designated examiners.